1/13/13

Dharma Talk, January 7, 2013: Nothing Known Beyond This

Our regular Monday night class, good evening to you all and to those who are communicating with us via the Internet. Today is like a jumping off point for a new year and it's very interesting because it's going to be a full circle from where we started from last year. Last year we started with this teaching from the approach of the Right View.

Today we come to a way of starting and saying "Let's go right to the beginning of the practice of Chan, to the practice of Buddhism. Let's see what's there; what is the most essential part, what is the most important aspect that you could communicate and say what represents the foundational principles of Buddhism." Anybody want to entertain that?

Student: The three Seals, impermanence, suffering and no self.Gilbert: Impermanence, suffering and no self. Believe it or not, something even more essential and basic than that, anybody else?

Student: It always boils down to what it always was -- mind.Gilbert: And when we talk about the essential of the practice, that's not bad what mind is because that's kind of like what we're going to talk about today. It's kind of a reverse way of looking at it but you'll see that this is a full 360 degree turn from where we started from last year.

There is a Sutra, it's one of the very first Sutras that were written, it's called The Sutra of the Lion's Roar of Queen Shrimala, sometimes identified as the Shrimala Sutra. (https://www.bdkamerica.org/digital/dBET_Srimala_Vimalakirti_2004.pdf) There are some much longer names to this particular Sutra. In this Sutra, it talks about how one should go about practicing. Today, I only want to concentrate on one part of the Sutra. This Sutra is actually very incredible. Later on, I will talk about what they said about the practice. But I want to go to the fundamental that it is presenting and presenting very early on in the Buddhist texts.

Now, we're going to start from the viewpoint that you might look at it and go "Wow, this is like heavy-duty philosophy, heavy-duty Buddhist scholar talk" but we'll break it down from there and see how easy it is. In the beginning, it won't be that easy for you to see what's there. But I want to read to you a little bit. You probably aren't going to get too much of it at the beginning but this is telling you "what is the fundamental; what is the essence of the practice; what do we really have to look into." If you guys get it and if anyone raises their hands, you'll get partial credit, okay? (laughs...)

So they are referring to the Buddha and here they refer to him as Lord. They're talking about the lion's roar and you'll hear the term the Lion's Roar a lot in Chinese Chan, treatises and explanations and exchanges between masters and students, they will talk about the Lion's Roar. This Lion's Roar is really translated in an interesting way where it says that there's really nothing to be known beyond this. Nothing to be known beyond this - it's like, I remember seeing something or somebody a long time ago (I don't think it could be done now) where somebody says, "I finished all there was in the Internet. I went to all the sites of the Internet. There's nothing to be known beyond this."

That is the way Chan approaches this. What is that "nothing to be known beyond this" what Rick was talking about -- mind. There's just mind but how we how do we deal with that? This is the tough part, the part where people will say "okay, if you want to practice and be a Chan practitioner, just sit cross-legged, meditate, I ring a bell and you can stand up and we'll do exercises. Didn't that feel good?"

But that's not Chan. That is not investigating. We need to investigate. What the heck does it mean, "Nothing to be known beyond this?" Imagine getting there; "hey, you're going to get there tonight, it's very, very simple." And you look at it but when you get to that point, you're not going to see it. Why, because "you" are going to be standing in the way. But it's there beyond this "nothing to be known."

We continue:

It is because of Arhats and Pratyekabuddhas have gained control over defilements to be eliminated by the Arhats as well as control over reconnections in Samsara that occurs to them, there is nothing to be known beyond this. However, the person who thinks "there is nothing to be known beyond this" has neither eliminated all defilements nor avoided all rebirths. Why is this, because the Arhats and Pratyekabuddhas, they're still illuminated defilements as well as rebirth defilements that have not been searched out.

So they're talking that even if we know this, that it's not enough. What is it? There's still something lacking that takes somebody from a very high level of practice to a complete enlightenment. There is something missing there. They're saying that:

Those defilements are two kinds: static defilements and mobile defilements. The static kinds are of four varieties: the static kind of a particular viewpoint - I see this, I understand. The static kind of attraction to desire - I want. The static kind of attraction to form - this is a ball; this is a person. The static kind of attraction to mundane of gestation -- (got me on that one; I need to work on that one a little bit).

The Four Static defilements generate all mobile defilements. The mobile ones are momentary - a moment of consciousness and its associate.

They say dharma here with a little "d" which is phenomena. The mobile ones is something transitory that is arising in mind. These other defilements are there - just habitual energy of different viewpoints, attachments, of desire and of a person. And then here comes the very difficult part but the answer --

Lord, the nacient(?) entrenchment which has existed from beginningless time is unconscious.

Nacient entrenchment, anybody know the word nacient?

Student: A germ of an idea; newly born.Gilbert: There are definitions that cover that but nacient also means, maybe I won't tell you right away. (laughs...) Nacient entrenchment - something that is entrenched. That's the big key. They say there's still this nacient entrenchment.

The great power among those four static kinds of substratum of all secondary defilements but those four cannot bear comparison with the great power of nacient entrenchment in terms of magnitude, portion, count, example or cause. That being the case, nacient entrenchment is the greatest power. It is also called the static kind in attraction to the super-mundane gestation. For example, sinful Maras belong to the class of gods and they surpass those gods and shape and color.

And they continue on talking about nacient entrenchment. They talk about a very strange language. It's something that one has to be decoded. But today we're going to decode the word nacient entrenchment. That Sanskrit word is Avidia. Reading a little bit more, it says:

Lord, ending of fluxes is the term applying to nacient entrenchment.

Ending of fluxes, flux is very interesting. Something fluttering like you're watching TV and you see a flux on the screen, a blip on the screen and so it's very temporary, transitory. Avidia is a term for ignorance. It's a big, big ignorance; not just ignorant as in "forgive him, he's ignorant. He forgot to take his shoes off." There's this real entrenched ignorance and this ignorance keeps the mind from realizing how things work.

So Avidia is a very important word but this ignorance is really the key to understanding Buddhism and therefore Chan because we have to keep looking into what is mind, what is mind, what is mind, until we find out that is all there is to know. And then you put that down. But the big key is that we have to root out ignorance in what we do, in what we say, in what we see. This is the practice. If you're looking for something where you're sitting there and you're going to meditate and you're going to float away, you might get some kind of a price for doing that but you're not enlightened.

I once had a class where there was a person from another teacher that came and I knew this other teacher very well. He's not a bad person but this person came to my class and actually for the purpose of stealing my students. But he came to the class and we're doing meditation. Right after the meditation, he ran very quickly to the books and started flipping pages. And he went, "Aha!!!" So when we came back from our break, he raised his hands very quickly. He said, "Here it is, I saw that in the sutras that one can sit without breathing and I was actually sitting there and not taking a breath."

So he wanted like some kind of acknowledgment from me or a prize how high his practice was. I just simply said to him, "Who was observing all of this?" There was somebody observing that; your self was still present." So the accomplishment is still not very great if that was what in fact happened. This is ignorance where a person had thought he had reached its highest level. They were patting themselves on the back and wanted everybody else to pat them on the back.

But that is simply part of the tricks and tricks of the ego. People can develop incredible powers but those powers still have nacient entrenchment within them -- ignorance. And we have to look and in our practice, we are investigators to find and root out ignorance about things.

So if there would be some people that if you tell them something about their life, perhaps something that happened in their life or you told them something that's going to happen to them, they will follow you because they think you are very, very wise. They don't know how mind works. It's difficult for them to do that but you might consider them to be enlightened. But still again, these are part of the tricks. They're still missing something; the person that's doing it and the person following them, they're still missing something.

We keep going and going every single day. I've probe "What is mind; how does it manifest" to keep myself honest in terms of my own practice. It is something that I surround myself with books to help me to teach but I also have the books there for my own practice to keep going. It's not that the books teach me anything or I teach you anything, it's just simply enables a person to show the proper means of investigation into mind. This is critical.

If you do not start with this, remember we went full circle, if we don't start with this as to what is mind and looking into it, you're going to miss out. You're going to be the person that's there sitting and thinking that they can become enlightened simply by sitting rather than really understanding the foundational principle of what they should be doing, what could be practice.

If you do this and if you see that where the practice is, that is called the Right View. That's where we started last year; little by little, teaching you and exposing you to the Right View -- how mind works. Now we come full circle again and say "now you've had an opportunity to look at the Right View and what the practice is. It's not the practice of trying to polish consciousness. It's the practice of investigative mind. Now this is Right View; we know then what we should be practicing. We know then that we are to root out ignorance so when we practice and we see things, we are honest about our practice. We look towards it to say, "Am I ignorant about this?"

So you see a person and you develop an instant dislike for them. That's ignorance; whatever comes up or an attraction to something -- ignorance. And we keep working this way till we see how mind works so that were not tethered or locked in to habitual opinions of things.

When we talk about this embryo, it is also referred to in the ancient entrenchment, this embryonic type of ignorance but then again in this particular Sutra, it starts talking about what called the Tathagatagarbha. This is this embryonic notion of the Buddha; not a Buddha out here, not the Buddha over here or somewhere on a throne but mind itself - pure mind as it works. Not pure mind saying pure as opposed to an impure mind. The very interesting thing about this term is that it encompasses everything yet it encompasses nothing.

How can you do that? Investigate mind. Try to see it. Find out where consciousness ends and mind begins or the border of consciousness. Where is that? You cannot do that. It's all interrelated like Indra's Net, that net that has all the reflective mirrors reflecting everything perfectly. That is the Tathagatagarbha. The garbha part comes in which is the womb; the womb being everything. Whatever appears to be coming into being is not really coming into being. It can't be coming into being because it's all part of mind. It's not separable; in anyway, not separable. It's not appearing anywhere else. (now I kind of threw you into the deep end again) Just remember ignorance.

What we're doing is we're investigating how this mind works. But our search should not be in the consciousness. Our search should be in where consciousness appears, to the point that finally it is revealed that there's nothing appearing yet something appearing but nothing appearing. And what appears to be a contradiction, is reconciled. The way it's reconciled is when one is able to resolve mind. It is not see mind because that would mean that you're seeing mind. No, and it's not my mind or your mind. It's just mind without the "it's just" or without the "mind" part. Throw it all out. That's the wonderment and the beauty of John is because what it did was it took all of this training, all of the sutras from the very beginning. This Sutra is at least 2000 years old and it is distilling that down to Chan.

In the history of coming through let's say Buddhism to China, Buddhism took many, many turns. There are so many sects of Buddhism. Some of the major ones are like the Huiyin or the Tien-tai School but these are intellectual schools and they dealt with things in the philosophical level. Not bad; the Abhidharma School, Yogacharra School, all these schools are breaking things down and seeing them. They're all good schools and they all essentially get to the same point.

Chan looked at it and just essentially where they were working with things, they took it all way the way right to the very beginning called the Sudden Enlightenment of Hui-neng. This type of school just said "just mind" but in case you were attached to just mind, they said, "no mind." If you got to the Huayin School and some schools, they weren't satisfied with that to be just mind, no mind, so they said "no-no mind." After that your head starts spinning.

They're not bad practices to take a look at this but in the Chan School, we go directly there. You go directly there when we're sitting -- go to mind. Not go to consciousness, but go to mind. Let the mind rest in mind. Do not turn up consciousness. If consciousness is present, it's okay. Why is it okay? It's because it's part of mind. It's naturally appearing there so we let it go. As we let it go, we know it's there; we're not ignorant to why it's there. And why is it there? Do you know?

Student: Due to nacient entrenchment.Gilbert: Due to nacient entrenchment; somebody is paying intention. (laughs...) Okay, can't beat that! But because of ignorance, and which gets to the next point and we'll come to that in a moment. Why does it appear in mind? Causes and conditions never fail. When we get to that, it is very interesting.

Anybody know anything about the 12 Causal Links, (http://www.rinpoche.com/teachings/12links.pdf) the Law of Dependent Origination, you know something about it? What's the first one? You said it before; nacient entrenchment -- ignorance, is the first causal link. You see how it's beginning to fit together here? Ignorance is the first causal link. I think they call it Nindanas. So all of this fits in the practice in terms of the Law of Dependent Origination - that from ignorance, there comes certain things.

What I'm trying to do is tight rope and hit a lot of subjects but not go into anyone of them because anyone of them because itself will require months of teaching. But in these causal links the first one is ignorance; then from the ignorance, formation, consciousness, desires, attachments all the way through to birth and death.

But what's important here is that ignorance is where it starts that sets everything into motion. It's an ignorance of beginningless time that there but once ignorance is there, it sets everything else. But all of a sudden, a world is sculpted out of ignorance. Ignorance is transitory; everything you see is temporary. Everything that you see, feel, touch, think, have volition, formulate opinions about cogitation, of consciousness is temporary. It's an illusion. There is nothing permanent there. It's constantly changing in accordance with the laws of causes and conditions which is Pratitya-samutpada -- causes and conditions never fail.

All of this comes out of from beginning to understand this nacient entrenchment, this ignorance that's there. All of the foundational principles of Buddhism come from that. We look at the Four Noble Truths and we see suffering, the cause of suffering, cessation of suffering and that it will lead to the path of enlightenment. Three of those are false but they're the Four Noble Truths so how can they be false if they're truths?

It is because there is no suffering; there is no cause of suffering and no cessation of suffering. Everything is already there in mind. But because of ignorance, we fail to see that. Therefore, there's really no enlightenment. Those are the other aspects of the noble truths which are espoused in the Heart Sutra - there is no suffering, no causes of suffering, no cessation of suffering, and no path. In fact, there is no ignorance or any attainment.

Ignorance is the final hurdle for a Buddha. At the stage of a bodhisattva, a bodhisattva still has this nacient entrenchment. At this stage of Buddhahood (I hate to call it the stage of Buddhahood), there is no ignorance. It is what enables a Buddha to become a Buddha. It's like Forest Gump running across the country and stopping and saying, "I ran as far as I need to." And that's it. (Not that Forest Gump was enlightened; don't want people quoting me saying that). It's seeing things as they are, as they really, really are; not from impressions of the conscious mind formulating things from habit energy but seeing things as they are. All the training I've taught you in the past year it's all folding in to here.

We talked about, anybody know what the Three Poison are? Greed, hatred and ignorance. It is not so that greed and hatred have a component of ignorance? When you say that there are three, there's not really three. It is just ignorance -- nacient entrenchment until there is no nacient entrenchment. That is the Tathagatagarbha - the womb of the Buddha.

Some of what I'm saying is new to you. It's kind of wow and far out there but it's okay to be far out there. You have to stop swimming in the shallow end of the pool like some of you. I go to retreats and I see people with their water wings on. They have a life raft around them, they have flippers, goggles, everything. They don't want to go under. They don't dare to do that. It's called daring to eat a peach; they don't want to do that. It's so sweet and yet they don't want to do that. Like if they were on Let's Make a Deal, they always pick the wrong one. They pick the crummy box or they pick the curtain with the mule behind it. They never could pick the right one.

The practice of Chan is such that enables you to be able to moment-to-moment-to-moment-to-moment pick the right one. That picking is called what?

Student: Wisdom.Gilbert: Wisdom, there we go; Right View. We practice with the Right View instead of ignorance. As we practice with Right View then we begin to whittle off parts of the notion of the self - what Master Sheng Yen was talking about peeling an onion. Keep peeling and peeling and peeling until there is nothing there. It doesn't mean that the onion disappeared, but the attachment to things is what disappears.

So as we begin to know what ignorance is, we know how it drives the Law of Dependent Origination. It sets things into motion. It forms things - forms thoughts, forms things that we perceive to be physical objects. We know from the Heart Sutra that it is empty but we don't know what emptiness is. We never get past that. We just think it's a cool thing to say. People always going around, "form is non other than emptiness; emptiness is non other than form." They never get to "form is precisely emptiness; emptiness is precisely form." But what precisely is it? What's the precise? That is where we should investigate. Throw it upside-down.

And don't forget about consciousness. We have to see all of those; work with them, they're your tools. You have tools of the trade; you have big tools of the trade, right? Like the painter, he has to have the paint, the brush, the palette, everything. We have to have the idea we know what to put down on that canvas. We understand ignorance. If we understand ignorance, that's wisdom. With wisdom we paint.

If you look on TV, if you look at a periodical, by and large that's ignorance. Sometimes I can say that about politicians. If you listen to a politician, they tell you what you want them to tell you. This is ignorance instead of really listening carefully of what you need. What do we really need? You see, it envelopes every aspect of our life.

When we see things in this way, all of the principle foundational points of the Buddhadharma coexist simultaneously in a moment. How do they do that? Via wisdom. So Vidia (wisdom) is the opposite of Avidia (ignorance). This wisdom is Prajna; sometimes they say Maha-prajna. Maha is the highest level of Prajna and then they get to many different statements like Anuttara-samyak-sambodhi -- the highest, excelled perfections and practices. It is us working with these practices that enables progress to be able to begin to cut down the ego.

If we don't do that, then we're going around like a balloon animal believing he's a giraffe. Have got to pop it; it's like a bubble on a stream. Pop it! Don't be afraid to pop it. So you eliminate the idea of ignorance in body, speech and mind. You replace it with wisdom. That's all I taught about last year - Right View. And you see how all of these points the Right View are folded in, in this incredible Chan omelet. We don't have to break it apart or do anything; it's all there. All we have to do is use this tool. Keep using it until there's nobody there to use it. That is the Tathagatagarbha. That is just that.

So after putting all that effort in, then one says, "That is what I need to know." (You're not even saying "I" need to know. Simply that is what needs to be known). What is "need to be known?" Nothing, it's empty. All the Buddhadharma comes to play instantly; shining without anyone there to see it but radiating, perfectly functioning in any given moment.

We don't walk around trying to play like "I want to be the Buddha or I'm going to play like the Buddha." You cannot do that. You have to put your time in. You have to put the effort into it. It is not nihilistic to the extent where you say, "If I'm not going to be there at the end, what use is it? Really, if you tell me I'm not going to be enlightened and I'm just a giraffe balloon animal, what's the point?"

The point is nevertheless, that in this world suffering exists. But it doesn't exist in actuality, in true reality, in the Tathagatagarbha. But for those sentient beings attached to this world, they suffer. Anybody today not suffer? No, we all suffer; better to practice. We practice more and more. We use wisdom to govern our life. Not bad.

So this is the start for the New Year. A complete 360 from what we've studied the whole year, going through all that back to this idea of ignorance. Don't make ignorance part of your practice. Make it only to the extent of identifying it but don't dwell in ignorance. Some of you are very young, some of you are a bit older; some of you maybe you're very young, maybe you've already made some dumb mistakes in your life, right? Some of the older, we definitely have. But the thing is that, we really want to utilize wisdom. We want to be able to do things wisely.

Recently, somebody e-mailed me about their past. That person said, "Can I practice?"

I said, "You already are by the very fact that you recognize that. You ordered realized it. A person who is ignorant doesn't even know they harmed people; doesn't even know they've done anything." But by that, that's your first step. To practice is looking at what you've done. Use yourself what the laboratory rat and see what you put into motion - what you've been chewing on. This is the way. That's the hope of the practice. That's the wonderful thing.

If it wasn't there, there wouldn't be any reason for me to be here. I would be getting all my pitch in before my last breath. That would be it; I'd be finished. But it does matter. We have to find out in what way it matters. What appears to be something that's a contradiction, we have to use that and find out a way that it matters and how does it matter, why does it matter, what is mind, how does it all fit in? You keep using that there. That is Chan.

When people sit there to meditate, sometimes they just go to La-la land where nothing is happening - the lights are on but nobody's home. Other times, there's no light on at all, but somebody's home. That's a dead practice. But when we truly practice, we are settling the mind. We are resolving the mind by embracing the mind; not consciousness, mind.

There's a difference. Consciousness moves all the time. Mind doesn't move yet, as consciousness is moving, "you" could say mind moved but it doesn't. It adapts to situations, harmonizes with the situations and in this way, it's in harmony with Causes and Conditions and understanding what is appearing in mind. In this moment, what is appearing? Your thoughts that you have; the very, very thoughts that you have in this moment is not happenstance. It is being produced by what I'm saying, what you done during the day today, what your practices is, what your confusions are. Everything is perfectly appearing.

When we see that, we begin to understand how mind works. This is what this practice is all about. That's what Chan is. When one is walking in Chan, one is simply illuminating moment to moment what is appearing in mind. What is appearing in mind? Not in your head, not in your coconut; all around you is mind. Where else do you think I'm appearing? You don't have an exclusive for me to appear in your head. I'm appearing in accordance with Causes and Conditions; you as well, all of you are also interrelated. Some of us linger longer. Others come in, touch bases, go out, sometimes they come back; touch bases, go out, come back -- all Causes and Conditions.

When we see why these things set into motion, we understand that the movement of the mind based on ignorance, and the panacea or the cure is wisdom. Not bad. That's what we're going to practice this year. Even though it seemed like it started off very complicated this lecture tonight, we really went to the basics of Buddhism, the basics that Sakyamuni Buddha taught and the basics of Chan. Any questions, yes?

Student: (barely audible...)Gilbert: I think the last of it is the ignorance because we've not discovered how mind works. It's not perverse; it's not like you know, "I'm sorry Stan, you're suffering from nacient entrenchment, we're going to have to notify the proper authorities," you know. (laughs...) It's not perverse. What it is is it's just simply there and one has to overcome that. When I say "one," and that's even a joke because there is no "one" to overcome it. Mind simply has to address that, see that, ferret it out and all actions until mind transcends that. And once it's transcended, that is the Tathagatagarbha that's already there but we're wandering in a state of ignorance.

And as of that, then we create the Samsaric world. We don't see that and because of our innate habitual tendencies and our acquired habitual tendencies, we create an ego, personality or a life in being. And it is difficult for us to practice in that way. We have to just keep certifying the practice and understanding no ego, no personality, no life in being.

But yet this skin bag that sits before me (you, but not really you) has a purpose, has a value. It has a wondrous function to it. We need to discover that but there's no bad-ignorance, bad-ignorance you know. It's just the way it is. It's that way when one sees it. It's like a car that has a sparkplug that's fouled. That sparkplug, we can't say it's a bad sparkplug. We can say it's a bad sparkplug but we can't say "BAD SPARKPLUG!!!" It's not that way.

It's all part of the engine. Once we clean it up and we see how the engine functions, is not that bad; just causes and conditions. When we take care of that, we're able to address the issues that come before us in a harmonious way in whatever we do. It's difficult to talk about this because you can easily paint yourself into a trap of the "I" looking for this but there's no "I" in looking for this. There's just simply allowing the mind to settle. We have the notion that we're practicing and we should have a notion of every day practice but we should also be questioning "who is that that's practicing?" It turns the mind's-eye inward to see what's there. That's where your investigation is at - in the mind, not in the consciousness.